If regulators seem confused about how to implement a health care program as vast and sweeping as ObamaCare, maybe, just maybe, it's because they know how badly they've bungled smaller and simpler health care reform efforts -- especially a particular drug discount program.
Prior to 1990, many drug manufacturers voluntarily discounted their drugs to hospitals and clinics that serve disproportionately poor and uninsured populations. Then Washington was seized with a good intention -- and you know which roads are paved with them.
Congress passed a law in 1990 mandating that pharmaceutical companies selling drugs through Medicaid -- a government health insurance program for the poor -- give the program the "best price" available.
That requirement had a major unintended consequence: Drug companies could no longer deeply discount prices to those organizations serving vulnerable patient populations because, by law, Medicaid had to get the lowest price.
As a result, many firms simply stopped providing those voluntary price discounts.
So, in 1992 lawmakers were struck with another good intention and created a program known as "340B" to reverse the negative impact of their last good intention. The law required pharmaceutical firms to do what they once did voluntarily -- offer steep discounts on certain outpatient drugs, such as cancer drugs, to entities that treated vulnerable patient populations.
Those lawmakers initially expected about 90 U.S. hospitals to qualify. By 2011, 1,675 hospitals participated in 340B. And the reason is more about profit than helping the poor.
Qualifying hospitals and clinics buy all of their 340B medications at a 25 to 50 percent discount, whether they're dispensed to poor people or not. Hospitals then bill the insurance company at the full price, plus a mark-up.
Read more:http://www.gilmermirror.com/view/full_story/23983829/article-Congress-Tries-to-Lower-Drug-Costs-and-Raises-Health-Insurance-Premiums-Instead?instance=news_special_coverage_right_column
No comments:
Post a Comment